Invisible
by newt-scamanderp
Summary: Jace was in the darkness, Clary was the light. And for once, Jace wished he wasn't invisible. Shadowhunter x Mundane. Oneshot.


**Hey guys! Strangely enough I came up with this idea while I was in the shower today and I really felt the urge to write it. For those of you reading _Irresistible,_ I will update soon I just had to get this out of my system. Jace is a teensy bit OOC but I really hope you guys like it :)**

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If someone had told Jace Wayland a week ago that he would have to resort to _stalking_ in order to learn more about a girl, he would have scoffed in their faces.

If they had told him he would be stalking a _mundane_ , out of all people, he would have doubled over in laughter.

Yet here he was, using eyes that usually searched for demons so thoroughly, and hunting for a flash of red. He told himself it was curiosity. He just wanted to know if those hauntingly green were really looking at him, or if they were just looking through him.

The first time he saw her it was at Pandemonium. She looked almost out of place, so small among the large crowd of dancers. Jace was on a mission, he usually never paid attention to the mundanes when there was a task at hand. It's not like you could become the greatest shadowhunter of your age if you got easily distracted by small dancing redheads, after all. But after he sliced the throat of one of the countless demons he's encountered at Pandemonium, he raised his head. And when he did he saw emerald green eyes, almost the color of the grass in Idris he remembered when he was a boy, and he could swear they were looking _right at him_. She didn't move, she didn't make a sound, Jace even turned his head to see if there was something behind him she might be looking at so intently, but no, it was just him. And he wouldn't make a move towards her, just like she acted as if he hadn't just murdered a demon right in front of her own eyes. He didn't tell anyone about the encounter, Alec would play it off as a trick of the light, Izzy would tell him it was all the adrenaline from the hunt getting to his head. So he kept it his secret.

Now he was back at the club, seeing through the swaying bodies if she would still be there or if she would look his way again. But to no avail, the same faces in the crowd and he cared for none of them.

Jace made his way back to the Institute, telling himself searching for her was a waste of time. He didn't know why he was, really, she was just a mundane, blind to the way the world really was.

Something stopped him in his tracks on his walk back home. It was the color. Red. The same shade he saw the night before. Her hair like fire reminded him how thoughts of her were consuming him like a flame. He stepped inside the mundane coffee shop. _What was it's name? I think it started with a J._ But he didn't care. He approached her, his skin tingling a bit. What was wrong with him? He never felt so nervous. He never felt so alive. Jace decided to sit down on one of mismatched loveseats they had scattered throughout the cafe, placing himself in her eyesight if she decided to look around. He took the time to study her petite frame. She was so small, but she also held an air of confidence, like she didn't view herself as delicate or fragile. That red hair that entranced him so deeply was pulled back into a ponytail with a few curls escaping. When he studied her face he saw a light smattering of freckles covering a pale nose and green eyes that he would always remember staring right at him.

He was distracted by a noise as a scraggly boy stepped on stage, hair covering his face and his mouth much too close to the microphone. He began to read some poetry that had to be an original, because it really just sounded like he picked random words from a dictionary and put them together to create a mess. Was this the redhead's friend? Was this something that interested her? Somehow he felt disappointed that she would be interested in a pretentious loser's attempt at poetry. However, when he looked over there was a small, suppressed smile on her face like she knew this was a joke as well. He smiled with her and couldn't help feeling that they were sharing a joke, even if no one could see him. Well, he was smiling that was, until he saw a skinny brown haired boy he didn't notice before lean towards her and whisper something in her ear. Jace guessed that was her breaking point because she finally let out a small laugh before clapping a hand over her mouth. He felt something stirring in his chest, something unfamiliar. _He_ wanted to be the one to make her laugh like that. He wanted her to let out that tinkling sound again but when she looked over he wanted it to be into his own golden eyes that she shared her joy.

Jace couldn't believe himself. Jealousy? Really? Was the untouchable Jace Wayland jealous of some rat faced boy? He never felt more pathetic.

Then all of a sudden, he saw emerald eyes scanning over the small cafe and he held his breath as finally they made their over to him. He just wanted to hold her gaze for one moment. To look deep into those eyes and know that he wasn't crazy, he wasn't in the dark, he wasn't imagining things. But as those eyes skimmed over where he should be, they just as quickly flicked away. She saw exactly what she was supposed to see, an empty chair.

The shadowhunter couldn't stop the crushing weight of disappointment that overcame him. Who was he to hope the impossible were suddenly possible? If there's one thing life had taught him it's that wishing doesn't make something real. But for one moment he wished things could be different.

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He knows it's terrible. That it's like torturing himself with something he could never have. But doesn't have enough strength to restrain himself. It's become a bit of a routine really. He tells Izzy and Alec he's going out for a run for his workout, anyway, anything could be used as an excuse to get away from Izzy's attempts at breakfast and they would both understand. He still hasn't told his fellow shadowhunters about his encounters and he doesn't plan on telling them anytime soon. They would be shocked at his behavior, and at worst, they would pity him. No, he doesn't need that so he keeps her his secret.

A lot of the time he sees her with the rat-faced boy.

"Clary" he calls her in an exasperated tone for the third time. She zones out a lot, Jace realizes, spaced out in her own little world when those green eyes, he's become familiar with cloud over. He knows that's what happened at Pandemonium, her eyes must've focused on him then as she lost herself in her own head and bore her eyes straight through him. He wishes more than ever that he could just _talk_ to her or see what she's thinking when she floats off mentally.

Jace thinks the name fits her perfectly. _Clary,_ he thinks, _like the sage_. When he goes home that night he says it out loud in his room with the door closed, just to feel the way her name rolls off his tongue and to make sure that he actually heard it, that she's actually real.

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Alec and Izzy suspect that something is up. Izzy teases that he's finally found himself a girlfriend and is sneaking out with her all the time, he only returns her comments with a scowl and grows confused as to why Alec flushes each time Izzy brings it up.

Jace becomes more and more frustrated through their lack of interaction. He considers taking off the runes that hide him and approaching her but chickens out each time. What would he say to her? What would he do? Clary definitely wasn't the type of girl to swoon so easily at his usual charm and arrogance. He feels disgusted with himself for feeling so weak with emotion. _To love is destroy_ Jace reminds himself harshly. But he didn't love Clary, did he? How could a shadowhunter love a mundane?

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His favorite times to watch her are when she's drawing. A lot of the time she goes to Java Jones, whose name Jace has recently learned, with her sketchpad and a pencil. She orders a coffee every time, black no sugar, and sits down on one of the couches before she finally relaxes. Sometimes she can spend hours in here, other times minutes, but Jace feels like days stretch out between them and he never wants it to end. He's frightened by how much he knows about Clary, telling himself to get a grip, but he knows he can never get enough of her.

Clary can draw just about anything, and each sketch is unique and breathtaking. Her sketches are almost like a diary, and she mostly draws what's on her mind, which is why he loves watching her create what she does. He knows it's an invasion of privacy when Jace watches her draw her most private thoughts, stroke by stroke, but he couldn't pull himself away if tried. Usually he sits right next to her, not close enough to touch, but just close enough that he could stir her hair with his breathing if he were visible. Close enough to smell her shampoo, close enough to hear her light breathing in and out, in sync and mingling with his own breath, close enough to hear the soft scratches of the pencil as it swiftly moves against the paper. Jace thinks they might be his favorite sounds in the world. Her small tongue pokes out of her pale pink lips and copper eyebrows furrow together in stern concentration and Jace wants to memorize her every expression. He wants to trace his fingers, his nose, his mouth over every part of her face and more. But he refrains. It's times like this when Jace wishes he could bring himself out of the darkness and reveal himself to her, his Clary. But they were from two different worlds, and to Clary, he was invisible.

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 **Probably won't continue this sorry! Hoped you enjoyed it leave a review please.**


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